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occafToned a ftupcndous conflagration, the effeds of which may 

 well be fuppofed to have extended even to the folid bafis on 

 which the chaotic fluid repofed, and to have rent and fplit it to 

 an unknown extent. 



That flame fliould thus burfl: from the bofom of the deep is 

 not a forced fuppofition, but has frequently been verified in latter 

 times. I fliall only mention one inftance which happened in the 

 beginning of this century, when flames burfl; out of the fea near 

 Tercera, and an ifland was elevated*. 



These volcanic eruptions, many of which feem to have taken 

 place at this period, chiefly in the fouthern hemifphere, were 

 attended with important confequences ; the firfl: muft have been 

 the diffufion of a confiderable heat through the whole raafs of 

 the chaotic fluid, by which means the oxygen and mephitic airs 

 difperfed through it muft have been extricated, and thus gradually 

 formed the atmofphere. 



The fecond was the production of fixed air from the union of 

 oxygen with the ignited carbon ; this at firft rofe into and dif- 

 fufed itfelf through the atmofphere, but in proportion as the cha- 

 otic fluid cooled it was gradually abforbed by it. This abforb- 

 tion occafioned the precipitation, and more or lefs regular cryf- 



tallization 



* 6 Phil. Tranf. Abridg. 2d Part, 203. 



